Thoughts, ramblings and other stuff

I was to write about the Expanse (and other new Syfy series) but I just read Rhianna Pratchett's obituary for her father and the screen is a little blurry. If you didn't read it go now. Space battles can wait till tomorrow.

And in the background +GNU Terry Pratchett keeps being sent.

I'm still unable to express my feelings, although I'm sure there is a meaning of Arghh! that encapsulates them perfectly so here are other people's thoughts and tributes:

Neil Gaiman, John Scalzi, Brandon Sanderson, Scott Lynch, Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing, Telegraph, io9, The Mary Sue, Wired, New Scientist, quotes from the books on Buzzfeed and tor.com - both the obituary and Jo Walton's reminiscence. All the guardian stuff including the main post, tributes, photos, obituary and Andrew Brown's reminiscence. Independent mentions his sword (that he made - from meteorite - after knighted because, obviously, knights should have swords).

Here is the link to the donation campaign in his name for The Research Institute for the Care of Older People.

Neil Gaiman talking about Terry Pratchett just a few days ago

It's been raining for 3 days now. Yesterday evening it was a regular downpour with water streaming down the streets today it's mostly back to drizzle. It's also been getting warmer and it's 16 ^oC outside now and I just was walking outside in my short sleeves t-shirt. So it looks nothing like Christmas. But in a way it does as who really have seen snow on Christmas? Most of my memories is rain and mud and that's what's outside (only warmer) and that's what my family says they have back home. So I talked to them while they've been eating Christmas Eve supper and they showed me their presents (we open them after the supper is done) - my favourite was when my nephew got a nerf gun and my nice got a bow and they proceeded with shooting everything including each other.

So here is your presents - BBC radio adaptation of Good Omens. The first 3 episodes are already available worldwide and will stay on for next 4 weeks. The final 3 episodes will be out in next 3 days. It is pretty awesome and there's cameo in first episode that you really want to pay attention to.

And in preparation for traditional Doctor Who Christmas episode here's Doctor Puppet Christmas special:


And here's the card with that tiny bit of winter I got last February.


And now I go to celebrate Christmas Eve with friends. Enjoy your Holidays.

Originally written 2014-07-08
Terry Pratchett has announced that he will not attend of the International Discworld Convention in Manchester:

I have been putting off writing this announcement for quite some time and on good days thought I wouldn't have to write it at all," wrote the author. "I am very sorry about this, but I have been dodging the effects of PCA and have been able to write for much longer than any of us ever thought possible, but now The Embuggerance is finally catching up with me, along with other age-related ailments.

Every time I think of his work and read his books I find myself stuck between denial and fear. The books keep coming so I can pretend everything is OK but every new information about Alzheimer progressing - inability to write so he dictates his books, now this makes me think about how little time we might have left. Both these reactions are actually coming from the same place. I've always feared neurodegenerative diseases more than anything else. The thought of losing myself scares me more than any horror cancer has to offer and makes me completely sympatise with Pratchett's fight for availability of euthanasia for terminally sick people. There is a thin line between staying as long as possible and still being able to decide things like this and if you cannot count on other people following your wishes and helping you make it stop. I think I would try to commit suicide while I still could and I fear that that would be much earlier than I would really need to and that this is a really bad state of mind to be living in. So thinking about it makes me feel depressed and angry so I try to not to. And of course it's easy with a person you don't really know or meet every day. But I do care about him (I love his books and he was always very nice to fan both in my own experience and everyone else) so I hope he is going to be OK and stay with us for a while still.

PS. This was first (mostly) written a month before Robin Williams death. As I understand in his case there was also an issue of his financial problems and the drugs for Parkinson's worsening his depression. His Parkinson's disease was in early stages and that usually means years before it progresses but I understand this feeling of hopelessness as the very thought of such diagnosis makes me thing of tall buildings and when depression gets into the mix you can't see any bright sides. So I wish there was more help with dealing with terrifying inevitability of progression of these diseases and not just medicating it. But all is left now is remembering all the joy he brought countless people and hope he enjoyed at least some of it as much as we did.

​Golden Globes nominations were announced today and ​Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany got nominated in ​Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama​ category. I was disappointed at SAG for not including her earlier this week but all is good now. It also helps that they also appreciated The Good Wife which is awesome this season (Julianna Margulies, Josh Charles and the series itself all got nominated and my only regret that Christine Baranski was nominated too as Diane's story was both heartbreaking and awesome). I'm also very happy with the film nominations (basically the whole drama category is something I would pick). This is the kind of news I needed after spending this afternoon discussing the possible reasons for failure of the experiment I worked on for the past few days.

In other news:

You can listen to the interview with Terry Pratchett about his new book - Rising Steam at BBC 4.

Charlie Stross decided to abandon the Halting State universe because he doesn't write reality. It was supposed to be science fiction, NSA. Yes, I'm talking to you, the one conferencing all of my Skype calls.

Doctor Who - 50 years in crayons:

These hoopy froods on ISS know how where their towel is:


But if that's not your thing today is also Wear the Lilac Day for those who want to commemorate the Glorious Revolution of Treacle Mine Road (and help Alzheimer's research):

Here is the greatest fan fiction ever. The tale of what happens when some smart cephalopods get their arms on some smartphones and start texting (if you think it's improbable look what happens with apes and iPads). If you don't get some references there are helpful links. I finally see why AO3 exists - this is all the justification it needs with for all the extra features like posting images and links.

Some New Year resolutions. These belong to Crowley and  Aziraphale and have been braught to you by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

District 9 wasn't just an interesting movie - it's success also invigorated South African film industry and made it turn to sci-fi. There are two adaptations coming - Lauren Buekes Zoo City and Nneki Okorafor's Who Fears Death and then a lot of others. I hope we got to see non internet version. I'm certainly all for non American SF&F movies  - we need some variety.

And I just spotted both Doctor Who and Inspector Spacetime references in Leverage. :)))

Some Australians are working on adapting Terry Pratchett's Troll Bridge. They've been working on it for a while and even got PTerry involved but they need some extra money to finish the project. They are trying to raise the funds over at Kickstarter and they show some things they've already done. And I think Cohen is perfect, don't you?

I've seen Hogfather and I really liked it. I've seen Going Postal and it was good. i still haven't managed to make myself watch The Colour of Magic.

Still I felt that they suffered from omitting to many details that make those stories so good so I was excited to read today on Discworld Monthly Extra that The Watch TV series is being developed:
If it works out it can be awesome. If even a part of the humour of the original is preserved it can become my favourite TV programme ever.

And if that is not enough for you there is also the same team is also set to develop another related project
So both Discworld and Good Omens are coming to TV.

I'm usually highly skeptical about adaptations but this time all I can do is squee :D

NewScientist has an interview with Terry Pratchett. He talks about his fascination with science and inspiration for Unseen Academicals. There is interesting stuff about how he deals with his Alzheimer's and how it changed how he writes books now that he can no longer type. It is inspiring that he fights the disease by learning new things when he looses the old skills. He also answers some readers' questions - like where he gets his hats.

Black holes for space travel. The science paper explaining how to create really, really small black holes that can be used as the drive for interstellar travel. They could be used for reaching sub-light speeds. Science and science fiction - sometimes all the difference is the journal type.

And if that space travel possibility seems a bit far fetched to you, you can chose something closer to home. Like the orbit. The space hotel takes reservations for 2012. You just need 4.4 million dollars.

The two sequels I actually care about. Robert Zemeckis talks about the Roger Rabbit sequel on MTV - mixing live action, 2D and motion capture, I hope he can make it work. And it seems that the work on Dr. Horrible 2 is moving on - there are some songs written already.